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The Mexican Cartel's Hi-Tech Drug Tunnels
In the past five years, more than 100 drug tunnels between Mexico and the U.S. have been discovered. This is double the number found over the previous 15 years. Not only are they growing in number, but the tunnels are becoming much more sophisticated, including electric rail systems, hydraulic elevators, and secret entrances (one opened via a fake water tap). From the article: "When architect Felipe de Jesus Corona built Mexico's most powerful drug lord a 200-foot-long tunnel under the U.S.-Mexican border with a hydraulic lift entrance opened by a fake water tap, the kingpin was impressed. The architect 'made me one f---ing cool tunnel' Joaquin 'Shorty' Guzman said, according to court testimony that helped sentence Corona to 18 years in prison in 2006. Built below a pool table in his lawyer's home, the tunnel was among the first of an increasingly sophisticated drug transport system used by Guzman's Sinaloa cartel. U.S. customs agents seized more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine which had allegedly been smuggled along the underground route."
somebody has been playing too much minecraft!
This is blinging
Remember, if we just increase the enforcement budget a little more and give up just a couple more of our basic rights, next time, we'll get them all for sure.
Clearly the war on drugs is very successful and victory is immanent.
...Garcia Gomez unavailable for comment.
s/[stupid comments]/[intelligent discourse]/gi
1900's tech is sophisticated?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
This kind of thing speaks to the geek in me.
I mean, who else hasn't daydreamed about how we would do crime. Personally I'd never actually do anything of this nature... not only for reasons of morality and ethics.. but because I'm somewhat of a coward.
The thing that really gets me, is that we only hear about the guys who screw up.. and usually they screw up for dumb reasons. This would indicate to me that there are smarter people with even crazier schemes that have and will go undetected.
With the discovery of this tunnel and the seizure of 2000 pounds of blow, the War on Drugs is clearly all but over.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Hogan!!!
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
...that they could detect the activity required to build a tunnel.
I've never used marijuana, but at this point I don't see its' continued illegality being beneficial. Legalize it for those of-age, require standards for safety, and regulate it in a fashion similar to tobacco and alcohol, where one can't smoke it in public generally outside of the marijuana-equivalent of a beer garden similar to how tobacco consumption is prohibited in many places, where one can't drive after consuming it like a DUI, but where some businesses could get licenses to allow consumption on the property, and where people could consume it in their homes, provided that it doesn't impact their neighbors and if they're renting, that it's permitted by their landlord, similar to cigarettes. Allow employers to dismiss employees who show up high in the same fashion as dismissing employees who show up drunk.
Do that and you just gutted much of the business of the cartels, put many of the street gangs and lowlife dealers out of business, and would prevent it from being cut with dangerous chemicals.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As a former politician recently said, the truth with politics is that *everything* revolves around money generated by drugs, war and energy.
As TWX's comment appears to imply, it's not the tunnel tech but the concealment tech that's sophisticated.
just build a deep ditch at the border, 1m wide, 50m down, with bridges over.
It seems to me that I remember that SAC released some images of the aquifers from the Nile to show off the underground sensing capability of the satellites.
Why isn't this technology being used to discover these tunnel complexes?
Sounds like what you need is a DMZ with Mexico that you just periodically pummel the shit out of.
Eventually, you may even get your very own Panama Canal.
Only now, we're giving power to Mexican Cartels instead of Al Capones.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Why not bore holes along the US/Mex border, about 50 ft deep, drop in some TNT and break up the rock?
You can't dig a tunnel through sand.
Seems some seismic listening devices could be used, as well, to identify tunneling activity.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's pointless trying to shut these operations down. The cartels don't care about loosing a tunnel or the drugs; they will just use/build another. The loss is written off as operating cost. I don't understand what drives the gov to continue this stuped cat-and-mouse game. I'd love to see the numbers for the US cost for one of these seizure operations though.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
It would look just like any other building project, since you always have to dig a hole in the ground for your foundation. Sure, they'd be removing more dirt, but it's not hard to conceal that.
Also, this tunnel as used for moving cocaine, which also should not be illegal.
1. Move the production from off-shore to real USofA American farmers and small businesses. Then tax them.
2. Make sure that the products from #1 are "clean" and "certified". That means jobs for government workers filling in the paperwork and running the labs. And fees.
3. Distribution. Real Americans driving real trucks. (Tax their paychecks.)
4. Sales. More taxes.
One important thing would be to maintain the same price in every market in the nation so that there is no profit in smuggling it any more.
Another would be to limit the production by each grower. You do not want mega-corps involved. This is just to fight drug-related crime. Not to drive brand marketing. No "Joe Camel" ads. No ads at all. Plain black on white labels with the product name and the growers government ID and the health warning.
And dump some of the tax profits into FREE programs to get people to stop using the products.
Most of the people out there would be fine as recreational users. Just as with alcohol.
>You can't dig a tunnel through sand.
The Boston subway system (built in the 19th century) would disagree.
That's a lot of border to monitor and it will just mean that the cartels switch to another method of transporting their drugs. There's no way to stop it. Some is always going to get through.
We should obviously BAN illegal assault shovels! No citizen needs a shovel that's painted black and has rubber grip with finger grooves! (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202562616/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053) Or one with a adjustable handle! (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202819477/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053) Just like a telescoping stock, these adjustable shovels only have one use: to build hi-tech drug tunnels!!
I say we force landscapers, contractors and other manual laborers to be fingerprinted, obtain a shovel license and be limited to buying one shovel a month. Who the hell needs more than one shovel a month! Plus, you must specify the make, length and blade material on your shovel application. And specify exactly show good cause for needing a shovel. Though, the licensing officials will never objectively define what "good cause" is.
It can be done if you use a 'Tunnel Shield':
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/tunnel/challenge/sand/shield.html
. . . will be a Mexican drug cartel. Hey, that's where the money is to be made, and will attract he best and brightest, and be able to invest the most money in the new technology.
Wow! Won't that be ironic . . . the first stuff to boldly go . . . will be drugs.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Hello everyone. The drugs are a big problem for Mexico and the US. Today Mexico is working hard on discovering these tunnels. Nevertheless I think this is an endless task. The problem with the drugs will endure forever because there are so many people in the U.S. that consume drugs. The drug lords will always find ways to transport the drugs into the U.S. Recently, I heard from a friend that the drug lords tried to rent 20 cars to this company http://www.iubik.com/renta-de-autos-en-mexico.php in Tijuana. They discovered that there was something strange with the guys before they gave the cars away. Nevertheless, what I want to express is that the business is so big and the consumers so much, that the drug lords will always find a way to transport the drug to the U.S. What I think would be the best strategy to control this drug issue, will be to make drugs legal in Mexico. In the Netherlands there is a law called something like: "The Blind Eyes Law" which basically states that the government will never know how drugs get into the coffee shops. Interesting isn't it?
Your plan sounds flawless, except for two minor quibbles, so minor that I feel almost bad for bringing them up...
Quibble one: a smidgeon under 2000 miles of border takes a lot of dynamite to turn to sand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border).
Quibble two: the evil Mexican drug runners might have access to Wikipedia too, and might find out that it is, in fact, entirely possible to tunnel through sand. The tunnel shield method was even patented in 1818 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnelling_shield).
Like I said, just minor quibbles really.
Just convince the oil companies that there are billions of billions of barrels of oil down there on the border. They just need to frack it enough to get it out.
Frack it really hard.
All that fracking ought to make tunnel building a bit uncomfortable.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What a waste of time, money, and explosives. I have a better question.... why bother? The drug war is not just a lost cause, it was never a great idea to begin with. It was predicated upon lies, and the need to find something for federal agents to do once alcohol prohibition was over. Its results have been far worst, and far more damaging than alcohol prohibition ever was.
All to deny people their most basic human right, the right to make decisions for their own bodies and minds. It is disgraceful.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
An easier solution would be bury a small diameter pipe and to dissolve the drugs in water and pump from Mexico
You can shove a hell of a lot more materials through a pipe, even a small one, than you can through a man size tunnel.
If I were the feds I'ld be watching & listening for horizontal drilling or use of old unused water, drainage and oil pipelines that can be commandered.
Why are there no Mexican Olympics? All the Mexicans who can run, swim, and jump are already in the USA.
In Texas it's popular to call Mexicans "wetbacks", because some of them got there by crossing the Rio Grande.
I'd like to ask the AC poster how much water *his* ancestors crossed to get here.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Why don't they just run a 6" pipe under the ground and package the pot in cylinders moved by little cars - they can even slope the pipe so the cars just fall down - ?
That would be lots harder to find.
These architects are funny...
Just shoot one of them!
Hmmm, While living in farming areas growing up, That name was given because they worked out in the hot weather and sweat, a lot. Since they were bent over forward, their shirt would only get 'wet in back'...
The laws and regulations would come from Congress. And they're already paid for. So giving them something productive to do ... I'm JOKING! Ha ha!
But having additional people in the enforcement agencies seems like a good idea to me with the economy in the state it is in.
The most important item would be the price point.
High enough to mean a decent wage for the producers at a fixed production level (I'm thinking "mom and pop" growers.). Say $50,000 a year? $75K? Remember that is will probably be happening in the agricultural areas of the USofA. Not Silicon Valley.
But low enough that the risk/profit ratio at each of the choke points (production / certification / shipping / sales) is a deterrent to all but the dumbest criminals (because dumb criminals are easy to catch).
We'd need some serious (and factual) number crunching to come up with the exact costs. But we have computers.
The key should be turning the multi-BILLION dollar drug trade into a multi-MILLION dollar LEGAL drug trade. Real jobs for real Americans at real wages. Where doing your part to fight the War On DRUG CRIMES means BUYING AMERICAN from your local, certified, retailer.
*American flag waves in the background*
*music plays*
Given the billions of dollars available to the managers of the drug cartels, one would think that they could do better than the simplistic designs we are seeing in the news. Maybe they havent found the really good ones yet?
I want to see one 15 miles long, with pneumatic tubes and drug sniffing dog proof packaging.
BTW, under the lawyers pool table, really!
The first to build a Star Trek transporter . . . will be a Mexican drug cartel.
No, no they won't. When is a hydraulic elevator considered "hi-tech"? Or tunnel digging equipment? People have been building tunnels almost forever and drug cartels aren't really breaking ground in the creation of underground tunnels.
Either something about how it's working because we found this, or something about how it's not working because we found this. It doesn't seem to matter which, somehow the evidence supports my opinion!
Wow! Won't that be ironic . . . the first stuff to boldly go . . . will be drugs.
Not really, since many drugs claim to be able to... *puts on sunglasses* take you places
YEEEAAAAHHH
Tunnels are one thing, Breaking your oath of office is another. That's where we should focus. Starting with Eric Holder.
The tunnels are a side show, but everything else suffers (US Constitution) while everyone is looking at the shiny object at the bottom of these tunnels and get's brainwashed how bad marijuana (the shiny object) is.
If they are going to make the dispensaries illegal why wouldn't Mexicans do this?
that's a little over 909 kilos.
remember your audience!
oop ack, snort!
The government aint seen nothing yet.
Unless pot is legal and soon the cartels will win half of every country in the world.
And impotent American politicians and goons dressed up like they are the military are not going to do any more in the future than they have in the past.
Just more innocent people getting caught in there useless crossfire.
If some of the "harder" more addictive substances were legalized and made cheaper we would see a huge increase in abuse.
Look to the crack epidemic in the 80's. Cocaine made so cheap for a powerfully addictive high that a person's habit could be supported by petty theft, burglary, and robbery.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/06/pictures/110624-cocaine-subs-submarines-first-submersible-science-colombia-drug-smuggling/
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
If what I have heard is correct, the drug smugglers often kill the low level after their work is done. ( Low level as in diggers This gives the term a whole new meaning. ) They do this because the workers know the location of the tunnel and "dead men tell no tales". The architect probably didn't have to be killed if he just designed the tunnel and didn't know where it was. At any rate, if they plan to kill the workers later for security reasons, they can promise very high salaries knowing that they won't have to pay up. Another tactic I heard they use is slave labor. Again, wages are not a consideration.
Of course. I'll give you three guesses at which industry builds the first holodeck, but I guarantee you'll only need one ....
I don't agree that ALL drugs should be legal. Some substances are just simply a blight on the population. Too often users of the "harder" substances become addicts. Addicts become isolated from being productive at work and in personal relationships. But this is not the fatal flaw.
The flaw here is that the tax rates for consumable goods is regulated on the federal, state, and local level. This is why smuggling cigarettes from North Carolina to New Jersey/New York is profitable. If you think a bit laterally, you could apply this same conumdrum to Kramer and Neuman "smuggling" recyclables from NY into Michigan for the better rebate. In other words, good luck with that.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Flaming Troll Alert
He didn't seem that flamboyant to me
You forgot their submarines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdI1y4sdPZE
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
You can't dig a tunnel through sand.
lolmoron
... (Hi, my name is Yuropian Stonah and I'm an addict!) a few things.
First, I cannot believe how many uninformed, apologetic postings in favor of current US / EU drug policy are gathered here. Come on, isn't this a hub of scientists, bright minds and people who know their empirics from mere belief? Every scientific evaluation of man's natural tendency to get high - and it's just that, a natural tendency ranging from apes in Africa eating moldy fruit to get their groove on to Professor Shulgin making crazy new synthetical enthegoens - has shown just how futile a totally abstinence oriented lawmaking ethos is. I mean, we can probably all agree on the fact that humankind is flawed in some aspects, for example I doubt anyone here would say there's any way to get rid of our general egocentrism, so any man-made system is probably subject to corruption. Why not just once and for all accept that people are going to do drugs, no matter what? The most popular ones, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine for our Western world and current time period, are usually just seperated from most of the other narcotics in their status in most people's thoughts. That doesn't make them, and here is the part where I really think the scientists in you should have no problem understanding, NOT DRUGS. Yeah, a lot of functioning people punch down a liter or two of red a night. Every other TV series has that male, older character with the complete bar in his office gulping down Scotch while handing down jovial advice to other characters. I for one, mid twenties German addicted to morphine and some other pharms with a rich history of drug abuse, state that alcoholism is worse and more devastating than any opiate addiction could ever be - 72 hours in hell and you're off smack for good whereas I remember people withdrawing from as little as a bottle of wine a day in their third week of detox still having seizures and crying for help at night. I guess what bothers me is, like everywhere else, the hypocrisy of advocating abstinence without admitting to the fact that a great, great majority of society IS in fact suffering from some kind of addiction. If you are telling people to not use drugs, why use made up arguments?
Heroin, for example, will shorten your life by not a single day IF administered in pure form. Of course, that also calls for sterile equipment and firm background knowledge on the topic. So why is it banned? I mean, seriously? Maintenance treatment with methadone, buprenorphine, morphine or heroin itself has shown how people on those drugs for decades have little to no tendency to crime or other life-shortening hobbies if given the chance to take part in social life without stigma. Cocaine and methamphetamine etc. are all quite strainous on the heart, yeah. But lots of the negative effects of black market usage are due to the life style forced onto people with a taste for these kinds of yummies. Switzerland research on Cocaine addict maintenance on pharmaceutical stimulant drugs has pretty much shown how unnecessary that is, though.
I for one am getting my daily dosage of morphine from the nice guy at the pharmacy with whom I often chat about recent developments in his scientific field. I then go about my academic/social/professional life which I will not, for obvious reasons, further depict. But I can tell you, my not-12-stepping-kinda-NA-group consists of two thirds academics, a lot of medical doctors and even people in administrative, political positions. You'd be surprised. I for one have pretty much recovered from the blows my life got delivered from the struggle that is illegal drug addiction and have been focused on my academic work ever since. I'm on enough morphine to kill an elephant (900 milligrams/day over 24 hour slow release) and 80 milligrams of methylphenidate for ADHD treatment, but neither prevents me from getting good grades. Or having a social life. Hell, I even get along with my family again since admitting to my addiction, seeking and getting help. But it's my personal luck that I have found both a very
Proving the (intentional?) stupidity of fighting a 'war' against the supply side instead of the demand side.
Though it sadly also proves evolution: put ever-increasing 'legal' pressure on the suppliers and all you get is ever-increasingly violent and ruthless survivors.
They are smuggling tacos.
Funny we never hear about the success Portugal has enjoyed by legalizing drugs, isn't it? Crime has plummeted and even overdoses and usage rates have dropped, but you'll never hear about it from the money-addicted Jonnny Laws nor the corporate news organs.
Obviously the drug cartels are the only employers in Mexico who can afford to pay better than suburban Americans.
Why are there billions (with a B) of dollars worth of drug demand?
Sounds like demand will not go away at any price even if we try to kill supply. Why not then regulate consumption and treat it as a health issue among addicts?
Instead of the DEA laundering money the government will have legit reasons to tax it if it were regulated.
Think about it, this idea has to eventually sink in with US conservatives. The question is when.
If you are pulled over by the cops on your way to purchase a car from a guy on Craigslist, the cops can outright confiscate your money if you're holding more than $10k in cash.
Since most people on Craigslist require cash transactions, that jeopardizes a great many peoples' right to presumption of innocence. After the money is confiscated, they are put into the position of proving they are innocent.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Those with shovels meeting minimum earth moving criteria shall be stored in one of the following four types of containers, based on their classification see CFR [to be inserted at final hearing review]
Type I shovel enclosure: ....
Type II shovel enclosure: ...
Type III mass shovel storage....
Type IV field-use storage...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If they were legal, the money wouldn't be going to violent criminal gangs that terrorize whole cities.
One of the most addictive drugs on earth, nicotine, is legal. My mother smoked. She died quietly, in a hospital, with pain medication. No bloggers got beheaded by the companies who sold her the tobacco.
You fucking idiots and your support of prohibition.
Until the drug addicts decide to stop living for the high these things will always be around and this drug war a losing, continuous battle. I'd like to see billions poured into getting people OFF drugs and reduce their customer lists instead of this good money after bad scenario with no real payoff for taxpayers or this nation.
They ran, swam, and jumped across the Bering Land Bridge you insensitive clod!
Mine crossed the Atlantic in the very early 1900s, and became citizens completely legally. Your point?
I like yours better. I was always baffled about the Rio Grande explanation. It always left me in Philosoraptor mode wondering "well wouldn't their fronts be wet as well?"
Um, legalize? Oh, never mind. (kicks pebble)
My understanding was that the Rio Grande is shallow enough to wade in places, and olde-style shirts had long tails at the back.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's just professional level designed by an architect, rather than giving some uneducated workers a bunch of shovels and telling them to dig a tunnel.
All so that ridiculous sums of money is funnelled into the drug war, making absolutely ludicrous money for defense, protection, and the legal system as a whole, while at the same time allowing politicians to win ridiculously easy votes by doing more to fight the "war on crime", which easily wins over all religious types, and anyone in the 'think of the children' camps.. It is doing frickin' great at this.
FTFY
The right to have control over your own body.
Right. Yeah, see, there's a reason they call it substance dependence .
That's the whole fucking point. With many drugs, you don't have any control without (significant) outside interference.
Meanwhile, you destroy your body. Your life falls apart. You hurt people close to you emotionally and physically, sometimes for life (children of alcoholics are a good example.) You commit crimes to pay for drugs. You lose control and inhibitions that keep you from committing violent crime. Ask anyone who lives in rural America right now and has had a meth house open up in their neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the people supplying your drugs are kidnapping people in border towns and slaughtering police and military every step of the way from production to our border. "Make it legal to produce!", you say. Right. So, if you're a violent thug with a mafia and cartel behind you that generates billions in profits...how are you going to react to people producing their own drugs? Sit around and twiddle your thumbs?
Anyway - that adds up to a real cost in terms of quality of life, health, safety, etc. Yes, we need more treatment programs. Yes, we have socioeconomic problems that exacerbate it. But thinking "let's just cut out that chunk of the budget we use for enforcement, and everything will be OK" is childish and naive.
Change will not happen through enforcement either way, but removing enforcement will only make things even worse. Change will happen when society makes drug use of any kind completely unpalatable and unacceptable, instead of simpleton assholes like you saying "hey, let people do what they want, it'll be ok."
"Let people do what they want" is how we've ended up with everything from mass genocide to environmental disasters to dozens of banking scandals and endless government corruption. To be laise-faire and libertarian is to ignore centuries of history and about as naive as socialism.
Please help metamoderate.
$5000 now that they lowered the amount.
I can fully understand someone not wanting to take a personal check, but I'm not going meet some dude from Craigslist in a dark alley with 10 grand in my pocket either. If they aren't willing to take a cashiers check or money order, or even Paypal, then I'm not buying.
If you do Craigslist deals in a dark alley, then either you are using it to do something illegal or you are doing it wrong. Buying a car on there need not be any different than buying a car from someone who put an ad in the classifieds of a newspaper.
We are cleaner than a whistle, and we refuse all searches because we would rather have our theater entertainment performed by vicious COPS giving us drama more cutting-edge than A Few Good Men(sm).
Hasn't failed me once, and I SUPPORT WESTBOROUGH BAPTIST CHURCH because they are the reverse-Americans that actually are speaking-out against the shitty mis-conceptions between actual authentic Americans and actual authentic Government. Both the people and the United States are dirty and that's the job of Westborough to poke fun at much more adversarily than the cowards of The Onion.
Think about it: 2 Gold Coins each appraise for USD $10k, yet have a face value of $1 each. 10k in Lawful Money is well into the millions of USD, but who is writing the laws is either States of America or States of the United States. Clearly in USCode those are different status and nationality. Similar in effect was how the colonists used foreign currency in their domestic trade because the royalty encroached on them so-much. US currency is a Basket Case that was once the parity of Services and Lawful Money but now is somewhat 99% hot-air jurisdiction security.
That alone proves that they are in a venue of limited liability and counterfeiting securities. Such is the same concerning requirements for business and Contractor licensing because it is written nearly uniformly in the Several states and America States that the State only requires licensing of commerce if the value exceeds $500 per day. One must wonder whether the money is in Lawful Money or United States domestic "dollar" currency outside The First Coinage Act and even-so just because the Money changes over time doesn't mean that existing Lawful Money prior to the changes of 1964 would encroach on Contracts that already are secured and enjoyed because old currency still has full force and is constantly being used to re-secure rights under the original laws not the recent limitations.
The more you know.
It could happen.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
That thur YOUR Kansas wif unfancy spillin, and this hurr Arkansas is Best 'murikka! Now git out.
My understanding is that the term refers to swimming the RioGrande...
Well, shoot, now I like *that* racial slur origin story better!
I would really like to know wtf the government can seize $10k in cash without reason. There is no excuse for such a law. I don't care how many babies you save from allowing it. It is not justified. We are not living in a free world. We are living in a hell hole.
The cops can outright confiscate your money if you're holding more than $10k in cash.
Was that a Lindsay Lohan joke?
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Why are we fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when clearly we would have a better fight from these hooligans.
Kinda reminds me of that short story, "A Colder War", where Cthulhu's wormholes were first used by the CIA to transport drugs.